Brigit Binns lives and works in the wine country of Central California, thirty minutes from the Pacific and equidistant between Los Angeles and San Francisco. She has been lucky enough to turn her passion for food and the great outdoors into a career: Brigit is the author or co-author of twenty-nine cookbooks and editor of many more. Along with her husband actor Casey Biggs (aka “Paso Wine Man“), she owns and runs the stunning culinary learning center and vacation rental retreat, Refugio Paso Robles.

“As the East Coast continues to wait on springlike temperatures, author Binns and the editors of Sunset magazine have a sun-splashed, gastronomic guidebook to the ultimate West Coast culinary road trip. With her dog, Stella, Binns visited more than 75 cafes, steakhouses, diners, upscale eateries, breakfast joints, and dives. Divided into four sections—Southern California, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington—each offers distinct routes showcasing the West’s “unmatched coastal beauty.”

The New Wine Country Cookbook: Recipes from California’s Central Coast, celebrates the food and winemakers of California’s fastest-growing wine region: “Paso Robles is a region full of mavericks and innovators. Utterly unpretentious, it’s the sort of place where people from other regions in California gravitate when they find themselves tired of the too-slick, too-pricey scenes in neighboring wine regions. French wine nobility cultivate vineyards next to fourth-generation cowboys, and for every sleek new wine bar, there’s a cowboy saloon with moose heads hung on the walls.”– Justluxe.com

News

Brigit’s California wine-country pizzas make a big splash in the July issue of Wine Enthusiast, with a 12-page spread including plenty of luscious photographs and great recipes. Check out the stop-action video of her Calamari and Chorizo pizza here. Deliciously unconventional, of course.

The recipes reflect this feeling of blending the old and the new. They are made with fresh ingredients local to the Central Coast (which, admittedly, could fill a Whole Foods) and feel on par with the inspired dishes we’d find in any hip and trendy restaurant. But they also draw on Mediterranean culinary traditions, making them feel familiar, slightly careworn, and deeply comforting. — TheKitchn.com